Canton Air Sports, OH

Despite a cloudy weather forecast for the day, Greg and Mike led a trip around Pennsylhio, joined by 3 new tandem students (P4ND4, Rhia, Collin) and an experienced jumper from Switzerland (Guido). After departing from the UC Turnaround shortly after 8am, the group eventually found a welcoming sky over Canton AirSports and began a day of many highlights. Among most noteworthy events, the three students experienced their first skydive, Guido experienced his first (2) skydives in America, and Greg made his 200th jump! Mike (and Greg) celebrated his birthday with 4 jumps, including two hop-n-pop skydives from only 5k feet, and Greg discovered a new, apparent affinity for obstacles!

-G. MacLean

Check out all the videos below!

Greg's trip compilation:

P4ND4's tandem skydive:

Collin's first skydive:

Canton Air Sports, OH

Greg MacLean and I headed out to Canton Air Sports for a beautiful day of skydiving on Saturday, May 2nd. This was the first time that Greg experimented with shooting footage using his new helmet camera; he did an excellent job of capturing my exit into a sit-flying position on my last jump of the day. We also participated in a three-way formation with one of the dropzone's most experienced instructors while another first-time camera-flyer captured our jump quite successfully. Other than a little bit of midday frustration over the slowness and general inefficiency of operations for much of the day, Greg and I were satisfied, as always, just to be able to get some jumps in!

-M. Jehn

Canton Air Sports, OH

On Saturday, February 28th, we held our first official Explorers Club skydiving trip of the year. We'd been shut down the weekend before due to poor weather, and we were suspicious that the same thing would happen to us on our second try. Such was not the case, however! The skies were mostly clear from just before noon onward; the winds were low and consistent. It was quite cold and the ground was a wet muddy mess, but that didn't stop us. Eric Blood, Aileen Craig, and Dinesh Ayyappan made their first tandem skydives, while Mike Stevens, Greg MacLean and I each got multiple jumps in. Greg tried out his new camera helmet; we're both really excited that he'll be able to shoot jump video soon. With high scattered clouds, the mid-afternoon was clear enough to see the skyline of Cleveland 45 miles to the northwest and a decent stretch of the lakeshore. We were the only business that Canton Air Sports had that day. We're looking forward to a great year!

-M. Jehn

Canton Air Sports, OH

Saturday morning, Greg departed from the UC Turnaround with Marco and Stefan to Canton Air Sports in Ohio, to be joined later by Mike, Corinne, Sarah, Rosie, and Garrett. The six students made thrilling first-time tandem skydives and returned to campus early in the evening, while Mike and Greg stayed in Ohio overnight to enjoy a campfire and resume skydiving on Sunday. Before finally returning to campus on Sunday night, Mike and Greg completed 15 skydives between the two of them, including a notable 100th jump for Mike! Congrats to all and to all a good time!

-G. MacLean

Canton Air Sports, OH

This was our first big trip of the 2008 fall semester. Greg MacLean and I brought out nine students, all of them first-time tandems. The weather forecast had called for a beautiful, sunny Sunday, but that's not exactly what we found shortly after we arrived at Canton Air Sports. The winds kept picking up, the sky was overcast, and it lightly rained. I knew that the weather would improve by the afternoon, but that did not prevent me from fearing that some of the students might not get to jump. Fortunately, the rain did not last long and the weather cleared periodically, giving everyone a chance to do their tandem jumps. The weather actually became quite beautiful by mid-afternoon. Greg and I got two jumps in; our second was above a high layer of clouds that made spotting the dropzone impossible. We used a GPS to determine where the plane was relative to the airport, waited a while to get upwind, and jumped. It turned out to be a perfectly good spot. Thanks to everyone who attended!

-M. Jehn